I am going to go out on a limb and say that there have been three things that have transformed my love of birding since my grandfather gave me a field guide nearly 35 years ago. The first was my Zoology Prof from Santa Barbara and the introduction of the life list. The second was the camera my Mom bought me for Christmas some years after, and the third was finding and using the fantastic site www.eBird.org. The attributes this site offers, to even the backyard birder, are amazing. The best part is that it allows each and every person that uses the site to be a citizen scientist, hold a life list and research birds around the world, for FREE. Every piece of information that is entered into the site is used for a multitude of reports that give insight into the health of birds, the environment and the earth, all entered by regular people just like you and me.

The Beginning

For me, it all started with the “Great Backyard Bird Count” in 2006. This snapshot of wintering birds in North America was started bythe Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. The four day (Valentine-ish) count has now spread world-wide with over 5000 species tallied in just 2015 alone. This was a simple count of the species and the location that birds were seen in a period of 15 minutes or more. In 2009 I found a link to a site that allowed me to enter my lists every day instead of once a year. This is where the relationship began.

The Nuts and Bolts

After you sign up with eBird, you want to find the “Submit Observation” tab. This is where you will enter the relevant information about your sighting. The first item on the list asks you to enter a location. You can do this in several ways but I find mapping to be the most helpful using “Find it on a Map.” The next items are the date and the type of observation which can be made from a window, a five mile hike, or an incidental sighting of a bird you saw while walking from your car to the mall. Based on this info, you will have your own personally generated list of all the regular birds found in that particular area at that particular time of the year. It is now as simple as plugging the number of each species seen in the box beside that bird. Once you have entered every bird, you close out the entry by submitting your info to the server and the magic happens. For those of us who worship our smart phones, there is an app for that!

The Cool Stuff

Here is where I geek out a little bit. The reports that the folks at eBird have put together are phenomenal. Not only do they keep track of your life list for you, but they keep track of your list in relation to your country, your state/province, your county and each one is kept as a yearly total or a life total. Do you know how much work that would be if you kept that in a journal or even a spread sheet? Would you like to see all the sightings of your favorite bird in your area? Yup, they can get you a detailed map of all the areas that a specific bird has been seen and let you know where you would be best to look when you head out next. If you have a streak of competitiveness in you, they have a top 100 for all of the birders in your area. You may just make the top 10 in your area. Do you want to find that lifer you have been searching for? eBird will send you a list of all the birds you have not seen in that region as of yet so you can hit the park where it showed up yesterday. Want to plan a trip to Belize and hit all the best spots, just have a look at the “hotspots” that are clearly marked on the map and plan your route or just the best spot to set up as home base. This lists just a fraction of the eBird utilities that will benefit you directly.

The Science

All of this information is certainly not lost on the scientific community. There have been scientific papers written strictly on the data collected and compiled from this web site. It would take a researcher lifetimes to gather this much data to make solid conclusions. Better yet, some of this data comes in so fast, that it can be looked at in real time. One of the coolest pieces of information that the site has come out with is the occurrence maps of species and the moving data that is entered by people like you and me. The video linked below shows the full migration pattern of the Mountain Bluebird. If you are familiar with the range maps in any of the books you’ll know they are general in nature, showing only two or three colors. Any birder knows that you must use this info remembering that 99 out of a 100 times you won’t find a harlequin duck in a grassland habitat at lower elevations in the summer and yet the book map says it should be there. However, when you look at the information in the video you can see the Mountain Bluebird migration from wintering grounds to breeding grounds and with some very clear definition. You also see that the northern migration is only part of the story. If you look closely, you will see that there is a much defined summer/winter area, even within the same counties, the only difference is the elevation.

The Finish

I just read through this blog and I sound like I work for eBird. I assure you, I do not. When you can get an unsolicited write up that highlights how amazing your site is, there has to be something you have done right. I am just a citizen scientist that loves birding and wants to contribute to a great cause; the life list is just a bonus!